Schwartzman knocked out of US Open

Diego Schwartzman’s run at this year’s US Open is over after he was beaten by Pablo Carreno Busta in the last eight on Tuesday evening.

The first meeting between the two, Busta had experience on his side, having previously reached a quarter-final of a Grand Slam event, in France earlier this year, and was a yet to drop a set going into this match.

The 25-year-old Argentine was competing in his first last-eight Grand Slam match and didn’t get off to the best start, losing the first game of the match to love. Within half an hour, Busta had broken him again and found himself serving for the set at 5-2. Schwartzman did break him back, but couldn’t repeat the trick in the Spaniard’s next service game, as he lost the first set 6-4.

An early exchange of serves in the second set then saw Schwartman 0-40 up, with him leading 4-3. However, unable to take three break points which would have seen him go 5-3 up, Busta held before breaking again, his winning return breaking his racket in the process. Serving out for the second set, he took it with consummate ease, to take it 6-4.

Having never come back from two sets down in his career, it didn’t seem as if Schwartzman was going to change that stat. Broken again in his first service game, Busta then held to go 2-0 up and consolidated to go 3-1 up, despite having to save three break points. 

Further holds followed, before Busta broke again to claim a double break and go 5-2 up, leaving to serve out for the third – and match winning set – which he did, to wrap up a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win.

Talking about the positives he’ll take away from the tournament, he said: “I think I have a lot of things, positives, to think about this tournament, think about for the future.

“I need to improve, like always, every week, but I feel really comfortable with myself to play like this week and a half, and I try to improve and try to do the best in the next year and next tournaments.”

Later on Tuesday, Israeli junior Yshai Oliel lost both his matches to see his tournament come to an end. He was beaten in the second round of the singles competition, beaten, 5-7, 6-4, 6-0 Korean Uisung Park, before teaming up with Alexey Zakharov, the Israeli-Russian duo were beaten 2-6, 4-6 by American Alafia Ayeni and Switzerland’s Jakub Paul.